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Residents lined the sidewalks as others paraded the street in their finest flannels and camouflage.

Earlier there was a lawnmower obstacle course, later a pie-eating and spam-carving contests.

Welcome to Redneck in Ramona.

Jessica Gilbert, a coordinator of the event, said the point of the Independence Day celebration was not to fulfill, but to poke fun at a stereotype.

“We don’t want to glorify it, particularly. Some people don’t like that,” she said. “The bottom line is it’s funny, and people do the funniest, most creative things, so we always try to get some laughter. We all need reasons to laugh.”

Gilbert’s family started the event in 1998, and when she and her sister, Pat, moved to Ramona in 2000, they tried to improve upon what was in place.

“It used to be just fireworks, but Jess and Pat got here, they got involved with parades, they got everybody involved with… Everything,” said Don Matkins, who was volunteering, selling ice cream.

The celebration now includes a two-mile fun run and 10k run, country breakfast and concessions, basketball and volleyball tournaments, a medallion hunt, and a live band, in addition to other activities and prizes.

“Our goal has been to try to build pride in the community, and have other people come in,” Gilbert said. “We used to do more events in the year; now it’s pretty much this event, so we put all of our energy into it.”

Gilbert said organizers try each year to improve some area of the event. This year they added a youth council, to help with entries, sell drinks and raffle tickets.

“It’s great to get to see them get the experience of leadership in a town, so I’m very pleased with that,” she said.

Because Ramona has only three businesses, businesses from surrounding communities like Marion, Hillsboro, Herington, Hope, and Tampa help with sponsorship.

“Many of the businesses, people quit when they retire, so there’s not a lot of reason to keep it on the map, but we do our best to keep it on the map at least once a year.”